Monday, October 29, 2007

It seems that the Bush administration, and virtually the entire US political/military system, is now a runaway train, moving at full pace down a track of its own design and making. Whether its the use of unilateral sanctions, the labelling of the Iranian Republican Guard as a terrorist organisation, mysterious Israeli air raids on Syrian soil, US missing nukes (the list goes on), it seems the US leadership has its twitchy trigger finger at the ready and is praying for the Iranians to make a wrong move (and, after some length of time no excuse is presented to them they'll simply create one).

When the US invaded Iraq in 2003 it was seen as a localised war, ie. Gulf War II, the US vs. Iraq, nothing more and nothing less. So how come the impending clash with Iran is being touted as World War III? This suggests that the powerful and mighty in Washington are well aware that by taking on Iran they'll be taking on a whole lot more. If this is so, why do they remain so keen to continue down this route? Why is it that these people talk of the prospect of global warfare with so much enthusiasm and joy? Is it really war with one nation that they want or something far wider and more dangerous? If it really is a world conflict they desire, for what reason?

Bearing in mind the strong religious ties the Bush administration has and also bearing in mind the religious rights wish for global warfare in order to fulfil their 'prophecies', should the reigns of power not be taken off them before they take us over the brink? At a certain level I believe there is an opposition of sorts at work trying to at least thwart attempts at hitting Iran (eg. the military whistle-blowers who may have prevented some kind of nuclear false flag operation, timed to occur when the Israelis struck out at the mysterious facility in Syria) but more is needed. The media need to get more proactive along with the politicians. Brave individuals are trying valiantly to hold the wall but they can't do it all. Democracy has been taken away and, although the majority are blissfully unaware, has been replaced by a dictatorship. We live in dangerous times and the American people are sleepwalking into a disaster much like the citizens of Germany in the 1930's.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Over English tea served in fine china cups at a sumptuous Paris apartment last November, an astonishing meeting took place to discuss the death of 36-year-old Diana, Princess of Wales.

The conversation was cordial. A butler carrying a teapot and tray of delicate sandwiches moved smoothly between the guests in the richly decorated drawing room of a building owned by the British Government, near the famous Champs Elysees.

In one Victorian armchair sat Lord Stevens, the respected former head of Scotland Yard. He had just finished a three-year investigation called Operation Paget into whether there was a conspiracy to murder the most famous woman in the world ten years ago and a cover-up to hide the truth.

The Princess was travelling with her Muslim lover Dodi Fayed in a Mercedes car when it smashed into the 13th column of the Pont D'Alma road tunnel in Paris at 12.23am on Sunday, August 31, 1997.

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Princess Diana: New evidence is to be heard at the inquest

She was mortally injured, dying in hospital three-and-a-half hours later. Dodi was killed instantly, as was the driver of the car, Henri Paul.

Since that moment, the controversy over Princess Diana's death has not abated. There is a veritable conspiracy theory industry which claims the Princess was assassinated, some even say at the instigation of the Royal Family or the British intelligence services because she was pregnant with Dodi's baby.

The report of Lord Stevens is now published. It concludes that Diana died in a tragic road accident. The report was meant to provide the final, unequivocal chapter on her death and a factual framework for her inquest which will begin next Tuesday.

Yet, if anything, the debate over how and why the Princess came to die is fiercer than ever. At the epicentre of this brouhaha is Lord Stevens himself.

For in the Paris apartment last November, he met the parents of the Mercedes driver Henri Paul for the first time. The couple must have been apprehensive.

No one in the Diana saga has been more vilified than their 41-year-old son. Within 24 hours of the accident he was being blamed for driving "like a lunatic" through the tunnel while "drunk as a pig".

Nevertheless, Giselle and Jean Paul, in their 70s, had bravely made the journey from their home in Brittany, on the west coast of France, to hear exactly what Britain's most famous policeman had to say about their son.

Lord Stevens soon put their minds at rest. The couple had hardly sat down before the peer assured them that Henri Paul had not been drunk - indeed, he'd had only two drinks that night.

As the meeting finished on November 8, 2006, the couple shook hands with Lord Stevens and went off with their heads held high. "We were pleased to hear our son was innocent as we always believed," Mr Paul senior told the Mail this week.

Yet a little over a month later the world was to hear a very different account from Lord Stevens. The 832-page Operation Paget report, compiled by 14 Scotland Yard detectives at a cost of £3.7 million, was published on December 14, 2006.

It declared that Henri Paul was driving at double the speed limit - 60mph - and had consumed a very considerable amount of alcohol before ferrying Diana and Dodi in the Mercedes from the Ritz Hotel in Paris to a private flat, where they were staying.

The driver was twice over the British drink-drive limit and three times over the French one. An expert cited in the report estimated that Paul had sunk the equivalent of ten small glasses of Ricard, his favourite liquorice-flavoured French aperitif, before taking the wheel.

If he had survived, he would be liable to prosecution for causing death by dangerous driving. It was a damning indictment of the dead driver, conflicting sharply with the account given by Lord Stevens to Henri Paul's mother and father.

Now grief can do terrible things to people's minds and it is possible Henri Paul's parents misunderstood or misheard Lord Stevens. However, detailed and contemporaneous notes of the meeting by an Operation Paget police officer suggest that this was not the case.

So why did Lord Stevens appear to have such a massive change of heart in less than five weeks? Did the policeman nicknamed Captain Beaujolais because of his love of fine wines come under pressure to change the conclusions of Operation Paget? It seems implausible.

Yet this troubling question has been aired at the preliminary hearings, overseen by High Court judge Lord Justice Scott Baker, for the forthcoming inquest on Diana and her lover.

Controversially, the judge - acting as coroner - will now order the jury to entirely disregard the Operation Paget report. It is a slap in the face for Lord Stevens. The contents have been removed from an official website linked to the inquest.

Lord Justice Scott Baker insists that 20 vital questions on Diana's death - and possible murder - still have to be answered.

They cover such matters as: whether Henri Paul was drunk or taking drugs; the possible pregnancy of Diana and why she was embalmed on British Embassy orders just an hour before her body was flown home to London, a process nullifying any later tests on whether she was expecting a baby; the presence, if any, of the secret intelligence service, MI6, in the French capital on the night she died; and the enduring mystery of why the Princess feared for her life.

Significantly, the judge has ordered that hundreds of explosive background documents, witness statements and tape recordings garnered during his investigation must now be made available to the jury. Some were not even alluded to in the Operation Paget report.

The background files cover the most contentious allegations surrounding the Princess's death.

For instance, a tape recording of one unnamed informant claims that the Queen's Private Secretary, Robert Fellowes, who was also Diana's brother-in-law, was in the French capital an hour before the crash and was seen in the telecommunications room of the British Embassy. (For his part, he insists he was at home in Norfolk all night.)

Another piece of evidence, detailed in a sworn witness statement from an American man, states categorically that Diana told a close female friend that she was pregnant just before she died, although she never named the father.

The files also delve deep into the lifestyle of Henri Paul. To understand his pivotal role, one must return to the days following the Princess's death.

The world was aghast. Flowers were heaped in Hyde Park, London, outside her home at Kensington Palace. Ordinary men and women wept in the streets across the globe.

Over in Paris, there was grieving too. Yet there was also something strange afoot. Within hours, rumours began to circulate that the driver of the Mercedes had killed the Princess.

By the Monday morning of September 1 - little more than a day after the crash - the French newspaper and television were publishing reports that Henri Paul had consumed "grossly excessive quantities of alcohol" and the speedometer of the Mercedes had jammed at 121mph. None of these stories was denied by the authorities.

Indeed, the allegations grew more detailed. On September 9 there were reports that a search of Henri Paul's flat in Paris had revealed a veritable drinking den. Shelves were groaning with bottles of spirits and wine. Tables were littered with bottles of vodka, Martini and fortified wines, while the kitchen contained open bottles of Ricard and American bourbon.

The reports contradicted what is now known to be the truth. An inspection of Henri Paul's flat by the detectives of the French Brigade Criminale much earlier - 48 hours after the crash - had found only copious bottles of soda water and just one bottle of champagne and a bottle of Martini.

Nevertheless the story that Henri Paul, a deputy security chief at the Ritz Hotel in Paris who had stepped in at the last moment to drive the couple, was a hopeless alcoholic gained credence.

Conspiracy theorists ask was he deliberately turned into the scapegoat? Was the driver, suspected of being a paid informant of the French and British intelligence services, used to cover up a much more sinister set of events?

Almost every person who talked to Henri Paul that night has since confirmed that he did not appear intoxicated before he set off into the Paris night.

Furthermore, a crucial blood sample taken from Henri Paul's suit jacket after his death - and the only one that has been firmly linked to him by DNA testing on his mother Giselle - shows no measurable trace of alcohol in his body.

In addition, a carbohydrate deficient transferring test 'proving' he was an alcoholic and conducted by the French authorities on Henri Paul after his death has also been undermined. A CDT test, the inquest will be told, is unreliable if performed on a dead body.

Meanwhile, what of the clutch of blood samples taken from his body in the days after the crash. They, apparently, showed that Henri Paul was hopelessly drunk. But were they really his own?

Intriguingly, they contained a medicine called albendazole, which the driver's doctor said he was never prescribed. It is a drug taken to get rid of tapeworms and given to downandouts on the streets.

Could they have come from a dead Paris tramp lying in the public mortuary alongside Henri Paul?

Equally puzzling is that the same clutch of blood samples revealed no sign of another medicine named acamprosate, which Paul had been prescribed. It is the only solid piece of evidence that he was a heavy drinker.

The driver was worried about his love of Ricard and had begged his doctor to give him the drug, designed to help alcoholics reduce their intake without cravings.

Pertinently, his doctor has since said that he felt Paul was worrying unnecessarily, as his drinking was moderate.

There is another dilemma, too.

The Henri Paul blood samples at the very heart of the Diana controversy reveal something else quite bizarre - that he had breathed in a very high quantity of carbon monoxide before his death: the same amount as a person committing suicide by putting a rubber hose from the exhaust through the window of his car.

Such a level would have left Paul visibly disorientated and almost certainly comatose. Yet at the Ritz that evening, minutes before he drove Diana, the CCTV cameras show him walking normally and even kneeling down to retie his shoe laces and gracefully standing up again.

It is now accepted that he never drew breath after the crash, ruling out the possibility that he inhaled poisonous exhaust fumes. Significantly, Dodi's blood was tested and was shown to contain no carbon monoxide.

The tainted blood samples remain - as Lord Stevens and toxicology experts say in the Operation Paget report - a complete mystery. One possible explanation is that they are not the driver's blood at all but come from someone else in the public mortuary who had committed suicide that weekend.

So were the samples tampered with? Were they mistakenly, or deliberately, swopped with those from another corpse?

The first samples of blood taken from the driver's body were left unattended and unlabelled in a fridge at the mortuary for more than a day until Monday, September 1.

So what will happen next? Lord Stevens is to be called as a witness at the inquest. He will be asked by lawyers for Henri Paul's family about the 'gross discrepancy' between the soothing account he gave in the Paris apartment on their son and the one contained in the official Operation Paget report.

He is also likely to be quizzed on the plethora of evidence on Diana's death never included in his final report. Of particular concern is the testimony of a Paris jeweller, who sold Dodi an engagement ring on the day before the crash, sparking theories that the playboy was about to propose to Diana.

Of course, Diana might well have turned down any such marriage. But the jeweller, in a written complaint, says that he was pressured - unsuccessfully - by the Paget detectives to change his tale and say it was just a 'friendship' ring. There are other worrying matters too. The preliminary inquest hearings have revealed that important eyewitnesses of the crash - including those claiming there was a blinding flash in the tunnel and that they saw a mystery white Fiat Uno at the scene which may have deliberately clipped Diana and Dodi's Mercedes, causing the accident - were never interviewed by Lord Stevens' team.

Instead, his detectives relied heavily on old statements made years ago to the French police. Now Lord Justice Scott Baker has ruled that crash onlookers and other witnesses should give evidence via video links from Paris and in person at the London inquest. The jury will be taken to the accident site in the Alma tunnel in the French capital.

One important new witness will be a French fireman, Christophe Pelat. He discovered the body of a paparazzi photographer named James Andanson - thought by conspiracy theorists to have been driving the white Fiat Uno - in a remote woodland with a shot in the head three years after the crash.

It was always said that Andanson had committed suicide after marital problems.

The photographer amassed millions selling photographs of Diana and is suspected of tipping off British, American and French intelligence services on the Princess's movements during her last holiday.

Andanson gave conflicting accounts of his movements to French police. They concluded that he was not in Paris on the night of the crash, although he had chased the couple relentlessly as they cruised on Dodi's yacht the Jonikel in the days beforehand.

Why, one might ask, would he have stopped following her when there was still money to be made?

The evidence of Christophe Pelat is vital. It might indicate that Andanson knew the truth and was disposed of. Yet the fireman's name and testimony - just like those of many others - appeared nowhere in the Operation Paget report in what was billed as the definitive account on Diana's death.

Of course, all this must be somewhat discomforting for Lord Stevens. As a life peer and now an international security adviser to Gordon Brown, he moves in the upper echelons of society with a hitherto untarnished halo as a formidable investigator.

Meanwhile, Lord Justice Scott Baker faces the challenging task of guiding a jury through a monumentally complex inquest. For if the 12 men and women leave their verdict open - if there is no conclusion on the cause of the Princess's tragic death - there will have to be a police inquiry.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Friday, August 31, 2007

The mainstream media has failed to report the agreement reached between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Iranian government in regards to the Iranian nuclear energy program. An understanding has been reached between the two. The IAEA has given Iran's nuclear program a clean bill of health.

Why is the U.S. media not reporting on this matter? Why do the U.S. and its Western allies continue to threaten Iran with punitive bombings for its alleged non-compliance, when everything indicates that Iran has a bona fide nuclear energy program and does not have the capabilities of developing nuclear weapons?

The following are highlights from the document:

Article IV (1): These modalities cover all remaining issues and the Agency [meaning IAEA] confirmed that there are no other remaining issues and ambiguities regarding Iran's past nuclear program and activities.

Article IV (3): The Agency's delegation is of the view that the agreement on the above issues shall further promote the efficiency of the implementation of safeguards in Iran and its ability to conclude the exclusive peaceful nature of the Iran's nuclear activities.

Article IV (4): The Agency has been able to verify the non-diversion of the declared nuclear materials at the enrichment facilities in Iran and has therefore concluded that it remains in peaceful use.

Emphasis added

The Director-General of the IAEA has also confirmed in an interview published by Profil, an Austrian magazine that it is highly unlikely that Iran would pursue the development of a nuclear weapons program.

The document is a slap in the face for the Bush Administration. In light of these developments, it is no surprise that the Washington is now seeking to justify military action on the grounds that Iran is allegedly behind the killings of American troops in Iraq.

The fact of the matter is that the U.S. and its Coaltion partners, as confirmed by several reports, are in an "advanced state of readiness" to wage a military operation directed against Iran. What they now require is a new fabricated pretext which portrays Iran, in the eyes of public opinion, as a threat to world peace.

The Western media bears a heavy burden of responsibility in the current wave of disinformation regarding Iran.

Friday, August 17, 2007

China is in the midst of a phenomenon whereby parents are giving their new-born children increasingly bizarre names. One couple intend to call their child '@', the English 'at' symbol which sounds like 'love him' in Chinese.

With just 127 surnames shared by 87% of the population, originality is tough. Traditionally, new or foreign concepts are notoriously difficult to introduce into the Chinese language because the written form appears as characters rather than letters.

This is further complicated by a national identity card system which does not usually allow for "unfamiliar characters", although it did permit 60 million names that included them last year.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Two German physicists claim to have made photons exceed light speed, thanks to a phenomenon known as quantum tunneling. The breakthrough was made during an experiment which used microwave photons and prisms.

The photons were mainly reflected back off a pair of prisms which were positioned with a gap in between but some 'tunneled' through and reached their destination at the same time as the reflected ones, despite having traveled a greater distance.

"For the time being, this is the only violation of special relativity that I know of." said one of the physicists, Dr Gunter Nimtz of the University of Koblenz.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Scientists have generally assumed that all life is organic, built from carbon-based molecules. Some say that an alternative form of life, based upon silicon molecules, may possibly exist. None have ever considered the possibilities of inorganic dust.

Researchers at Russian Academy of Science in Moscow and at the Max-Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany have discovered that, under certain conditions, particles of dust can form into helical structures and reproduce.

The structures behave similarly to DNA and proteins, copying original versions of themselves and evolve in ways that question both how life began here on earth and how seemingly redundant dust particles in space may be the building blocks of life.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Reacting to rumours that the Chinese government may be considering using its huge currency reserves to push down the value of the dollar, President Bush says that the rival would be 'foolhardy' to do such a thing.

It has been said that China may sell off a trillion dollars in foreign reserves as retaliation against American pressure over currency issues. "That would be foolhardy of them to do that." Bush told Fox News.

"As long as there are no big upheavals in the American economy and there is no serious dispute between China and the United States, the Chinese government will not sell off US dollar assets in any major amounts," said a top Chinese economist.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Microbes recovered from ice samples dating back between 100,000 and 8 million years have returned to a living state and resumed growth, according to a report by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The older samples proved to be less successful than the younger ones and scientists have found that DNA is halved in samples over 1.1 million years old, with the oldest consisting of just 210 units instead of the more usual 3 million.

The research will help in learning how life survives in the extremes of earthly environments as well as how micro-organisms could possibly withstand conditions on other planets such as Mars.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

In what appears to be a return to the old days of the Cold War, two massive Middle Eastern arms deals have been announced, with Russia selling to Iran and the US to other regional powers including Saudi Arabia.

Russia is to sell 250 long-range Su-30 fighters and refuelling tankers to Iran in its biggest arms deal in 30 years, a deal which will transform the Iranian air force into a military arm rivalling that of nearby Israel.

Monday, July 30, 2007

A man in The Netherlands who stood accused of having sex with a sheep walked free from court because the animal was unable to testify that it hadn't given him prior consent or that it had suffered emotional stress as a result.

Without this testimony people cannot be found guilty of bestiality in Holland. Animal rights campaigner Jos van Huisen noted "Short of putting the sheep in the dock, at the moment these perverts cannot be prosecuted."

The countrys Minister of Justice, Ernst Hirsch Ballin, has since stated that he will fight to change the law so that in future it will be a criminal offence to have sex with animals.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Document uncovers details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by a group of right-wing American businessmen. The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression.

Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

I am totally amazed at how far The United States Of America has travelled, from beacon of democracy and freedom to a virtual dictatorship which is seen by the majority of the outside world as the biggest threat to global peace at this time. Up until a while ago, the nations people could be forgiven for their inaction. Many said that the electorate were simply stunned, being caught wrong-footed by a manipulative and sly leadership. But that time has long passed and anyone who sits and watches as an illegal war is waged, as US citizens are spied upon, as elections are rigged, as the nations judiciary is gagged, as torture and kidnapping are sanctioned as matters of policy, as the threat of terror is used on its own people as a means to get them to give up their rights, anyone who sits by and does nothing is complicit.

So in case anyone is still unsure, success on impeachment is virtually guaranteed on ANY of the following charges:

Bush and Cheney's lies about Iraqi ties to al Qaeda are on videotape and in writing, and Bush and Cheney continue to make them to this day. There was no al Qaeda in Iraq until the invasion.

Their claims about Iraqi weapons have been shown in every detail to have been, not mistakes, but lies.

Their threats to Iran are on videotape.

Bush being warned about Katrina and claiming he was not are on videotape.

Bush lying about illegal spying and later confessing to it are on videotape. A federal court has ruled that spying to be a felony.

The Supreme Court has ruled Bush and Cheney's system of detentions unconstitutional.

Torture, openly advocated for by Bush and Cheney and their staffs, is documented by victims, witnesses, and public photographs. Torture was always illegal and has been repeatedly recriminalized under Bush and Cheney. Bush has reversed laws with signing statements.

Those statements are posted on the White House website, and a GAO report found that with 30 percent of Bush's signing statements in which he announces his right to break laws, he has in fact proceeded to break those laws.

So any time you guys want to do the right thing and prove to the world that you are the great, strong nation that your reputation suggests, please go ahead. We can't do it for you. The rest of the world is waiting.

Friday, July 20, 2007

The “war on terrorism” is a foreign policy weapon favored by an elite and ironclad Anglo-American consensus, supported equally by Washington’s political factions. The surge of "al-Qaeda" covert operations and "terrorism" propaganda over the past three weeks, and reports of “renewed al-Qaeda power," marks the beginning of intensified false flag deception.

Al-Qaeda:“stronger than ever” -- or not?

It is not clear if the new crescendo of “al-Qaeda” signals intent by the Bush-Cheney covert operations machine to inflict their long-planned "next 9/11" before relinquishing power in 2008, or if this noise is routine political maneuvering by rival Washington factions engaged in election-year posturing. Nevertheless, a most perfect of perfect storms is being whipped up, with major players on all sides regurgitating and reinforcing the same bombastic assertions.

The initial wave of US fear mongering was triggered by the latest National Intelligence Estimate (produced by Bush-Cheney intelligence) declaring that “al-Qaeda” has regrouped to "pre-9/11 levels". This was quickly followed by new "terror" tapes of “al-Qaeda” masterminds Osama bin Laden and il-Zawahiri, each demonstrating, according to Bush-Cheney, that “al-Qaeda is even more high-tech and sophisticated than ever imagined."

The initial “al-Qaeda stronger than ever” blast was then followed by rounds of equivocation and backpedaling. Reports from Washington reporters, such as Rowan Scarborough, quoted “unnamed counterterrorism officials” who say that al-Qaeda has rebuilt cells in the tribal areas of Pakistan (an old and familiar claim), but “is not at the same strength exhibited in Afghanistan before Sept.11” -- and taking issue with how the National Intelligence Estimate was initially spun.

Homeland Security “czar” Michael Chertoff declared that “al-Qaeda” was not at pre-9/11 strength, boasting about the Bush administration’s success killing or capturing two-thirds of “al-Qaeda” leaders, then adding that he has a “gut feeling” that “al-Qaeda” will strike the US again, perhaps this summer.

The mostinconvenient truth

Neocons, neoliberals, and “antiwar progressives” continue to enthusiastically embrace and reinforce the myth of the “ever-more powerful, ever-more cunning outside ‘terrorist’ threat to America” -- and will continue to do so ad nauseum, as they have for nearly six years since 9/11. Meanwhile, the long-standing and enduring relationship between Islamic “terrorists," “al-Qaeda," Osama bin Laden, etc. and Anglo-American and US-allied intelligence agencies (CIA, FBI, MI-6, Pakistani ISI, Mossad, etc.) and their ongoing use and manipulation of these "terrorist" groups on behalf of Anglo-Anerican geostrategy remains completely ignored, and the focus of ongoing cover-up, media silence and academic obfuscation.

Ignorant distortions about “terrorism” are now routine and deeply embedded fixations in news coverage, and in pop culture monstrosities such the television series 24, as well as the film The Mighty Heart, which the Daniel Pearl murder gloss-over starring the Council on Foreign Relation’s newest member, Angelina Jolie. Esquire magazine’s al-Qaeda:The Global Brand by Thomas Barnett is a perfect example of how the Washington consensus deception is swallowed without question, and reiterated compliantly.

Bush-Cheney’s supposed critics have complained about the administration’s “squandered opportunity” and Iraq blunders, but have never wavered in their support for the “war on terrorism." Slippery variations on the “war on terrorism” theme include (but are not limited to) the following:

“The Bush administration has failed to fight the ‘real war on terrorism’ begun after 9/11.”

“Mismanagement and blunders of the war in Iraq have created radical jihadist insurgencies that wish to destroy the United States.”

“The Iraq mistake has distracted us from fighting the ‘real’ war on terrorism.”

“We should declare war on Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, which harbor the real ‘terrorists’ who attacked us on 9/11.”

“The Iraq distraction has prevented us from capturing Osama.”

“The world was united after 9/11, but Bush squandered it all.”

There is obvious disillusion with the Bush administration, but the widespread call for a “change in strategy” does not include any letup of the “war on terrorism." In fact, the voices most stridently demanding “change” are cementing years of criminal lies under new layers of deception. They want to ramp up Bush’s false flag wars, not end them.

US presidentialcandidates feast on “al-Qaeda” propaganda meat

The latest “al-Qaeda” headlines have each of the 2008 US presidential candidates falling over each other to play the “tough on terrorism” card.

“Al-Qaeda” war politics blossomed during the Bill Clinton adminstration with the use of al-Qaeda/militant Islamic mercenaries in Kosovo and Bosnia, and what is arguably the true start of today’s “war on terror” -- the identification of Osama bin Laden as “enemy number one” (at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal) in 1998, followed by the bombing of Sudan. The cooperative role that the deeply corrupt Clinton faction played alongside the Bush “crime family," in virtually all of the major US government crimes from the 1980s to the present, can fill several libraries. It goes without saying that a Hillary Clinton presidency would continue the Bush-Cheney agenda, and return Anglo-American criminality to its 1990s glory.

What about the others? Contrary to his image as a “progressive," Barack Obama’s foreign policy agenda is virtually identical to that of the Bush administration, including his approach to the “war on terrorism." Obama has promised a robust US military-intelligence presence in Iraq and the Middle East to “root out al-Qaeda." To defeat al-Qaeda, Obama will build a “twenty first century military and twenty first century alliances” in order to “stay on the offensive everywhere from Djibouti to Kandahar," and “revamp intelligence agencies far beyond post-September 11 reforms." Another analysis of Obama’s aggressive war policy can be found here.

Obama promotes the false notion of "blowback." Like other members of Congress, Obama has access to classified material. He and others are complicit in hiding the fact of Anglo-American intelligence connectons behind both the “terrorism” and the “insurgencies."

The “anti-terror” platform of John Edwards is equally malodorous. It was Edwards who promised on national television, during the 2004 vice presidential debate with Dick Cheney, that he would “kill the terrorists." So would Joe Biden (one of the many who met with the ISI "money man" before 9/11), Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson, and other longtime Democratic Party fossils. (Two Democratic Party candidates who are more stridently critical of Bush-Cheney’s agenda, Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel are routinely shut out by the Democratic Party apparatus, and stand no chance of nomination.)

It goes without saying that the Republican candidates fully support Bush-Cheney’s geostrategy and war policies, from Mitt Romney to Sam Brownback (the lone critic of Bush policy, Ron Paul, stands no chance). Given the fact that these “loyal Bushies” have been instrumental in making the global slaughter possible, and covering up the rampant criminality led by the Bush administration, it is no surprise to find these candidates aggressively peddling the “terrorism” propaganda. Rudy Guiliani, whose active criminal role on 9/11 was exhaustively exposed in Michael Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon, is essentially an extension of Dick Cheney. Mitt Romney promises to “combat radical Islam” with a war agenda identical to Obama's (which is identical to Bush-Cheney’s). Romney’s provocative speech at the Herzliya Conference speaks for itself.

The bloodthirsty John McCain has routinely fronted for Bush-Cheney. There is no better crystallization of McCain’s depravity than his post-9/11 Wall Street Journal op-ed, "War is Hell. Now Let's Get On With It," in which McCain openly calls for “ruthless” murder. The piece is also a perfect presentation of Bush-Cheney’s lie.

What is clear is that the next US president will not only continue but also expand the “war on terrorism” and the “war against radical extremists." Both Republican and Democratic Party factions stand to gain from false flag terror and propaganda. Anglo-American geostrategy, and the expansion of the war and global resource conquest, would not be possible without them.

Al-Qaeda: perpetualcovert operation and cover-up

As previously noted in “al-Qaeda:the eternal covert operation," “Islamic terrorism” is a Anglo-American geostrategy, and “al-Qaeda” is a military-intelligence asset and a leading brand of war propaganda.

Official “war on terrorism” disinformation is repeated ad nauseum, accepted as fact by the mass populace, and used as the justification for ever-expanding Anglo-American war and ever-deepening criminality, virtually no attention is paid to the Anglo-American support and management of “al-Qaeda” and other “terror” groups, or the criminally fabricated nature of modern “terrorism." Every major “terrorism” event in recent times has been a US or US-allied covert operation, followed by political manipulation and cover-up. No credible proof has been provided to prove any official assertion made about the true nature of “al-Qaeda," Osama bin Laden, 9/11, etc.

Planned covert operations and false flag operations using “terrorists” in direct and indirect military-intelligence roles are of imperial design. Such operations (exemplified by 9/11), and their predictable propaganda results (“the war on terrorism”) are now routine events.

Even though the notion of false flag terror has more recently been supported by the likes of activist Cindy Sheehan, the vast majority of Americans remains in absolute denial and ignorance, or fully endorse violent “anti-terrorism” agendas.

The idea of “blowback," the notion that terrorist assets have turned on their sponsors, is embraced by many, but it is bogus: Western intelligence has not severed its ties to “terrorists," and, in fact, continues to selectively guide these groups. The true “root cause” of “Islamic terrorism” remains Anglo-American control and guidance of “terror."

As pointed out by Michel Chossudovsky, the “al-Qaeda” deception is central to Anglo-American foreign policy, which rests squarely on the perpetual threat of a fabricated outside enemy, and fear of a "new 9/11". This deception provides the ongoing pretext used to justify endless warfare and endless criminality.

“Al-Qaeda” is indeed a “global brand”: the pre-eminent brand of Anglo-American covert operation and propaganda apparatus, created, funded, guided and manipulated by leading government powers and intelligence agencies.

Monday, July 16, 2007

OK, an interesting post by Per Myrsten showing who was the main composer of Beatles songs got me thinking - who was the biggest contributor to the group regarding song-writing and singing combined? Which Beatle could theoretically take the most credit for the bands huge success? I realise that here was a great example of the sum of the parts being greater than the whole and so to single one individual out is distorting the overall picture, but then I thought 'sod it, who cares. I'll just do it anyway'. So here we go.

I decided to use statistics based on the following:

(1.) No.1 hit singles only - rather than going through every country in the world that had ever charted a Beatles hit I opted for what I felt was a representative cross-section of countries: US, UK, Germany, Australia and Holland.

(2.) a points system based on 4 points for the songwriter and 2 points for the singer. I reasoned that being responsible for writing the song was about twice as important as singing it, hence the uneven distribution of points. Where both Lennon and McCartney both contributed to either function the points were evenly split between them.

(3.) the points total awarded at (2.) are then multiplied by the number of countries where the song scored a No.1 hit.

So, for example, for We Can Work It Out, the songwriter was both Lennon and McCartney (2 points each) but the singer was just McCartney (so he gets another 2 points). These points are then multiplied by 4 (because the No.1 hits were in UK, US, Australia and Holland) giving a total for this song of 8 for Lennon and 16 for McCartney.

Taking all of this into account, I got the following table:

song title

comp

singer

UK

US

Ger.

Aus.

Holl.

From Me to You

Len / McC

Len / McC

1

She Loves You

Len / McC

Len / McC

1

1

I Want to Hold Your Hand

Len / McC

Len / McC

1

1

1

1

1

Can't Buy Me Love

McC

McC

1

1

1

1

A Hard Day's Night

Len

Len / McC

1

1

1

1

I Feel Fine

Len

Len

1

1

1

1

Ticket to Ride

Len

Len

1

1

1

1

Help!

Len

Len

1

1

1

1

Day Tripper

Len

Len / McC

1

1

1

1

We Can Work It Out

Len / McC

McC

1

1

1

1

Paperback Writer

McC

McC

1

1

1

1

Yellow Submarine

McC

Sta

1

1

1

1

Eleanor Rigby

McC

McC

1

1

1

1

All You Need Is Love

Len

Len

1

1

1

1

1

Hello, Goodbye

McC

McC

1

1

1

1

1

Lady Madonna

McC

McC

1

1

Hey Jude

McC

McC

1

1

1

1

1

Get Back

McC

McC

1

1

1

1

1

The Ballad of John and Yoko

Len

Len

1

1

1

1

Penny Lane

McC

McC

1

1

1

1

Strawberry Fields Forever

Len

Len

1

1

1

1

Come Together

Len

Len

1

1

1

Something

Har

Har

1

1

1

Let It Be

McC

McC

1

1

1

Yesterday

McC

McC

1

1

Love Me Do

McC

Len / McC

1

Baby It's You

n/a

Len

Eight Days a Week

McC

Len / McC

1

The Long and Winding Road

McC

McC

1

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

McC

McC

1

1

I Saw Her Standing There

McC

McC

1

I Should Have Known Better

Len

Len

1

1

Rock and Roll Music

n/a

Len

1

1

Nowhere Man

Len

Len

1

Long Tall Sally EP

n/a

McC

1

Michelle

McC

McC

1

The results? Lennon : 264 - McCartney : 334. Paul McCartney was 26% greater than John Lennon in terms of the contribution made to their success while the group was still together*. Not that this matters. Not that this is even true. The methods used to produce this conclusion are totally arbitrary and the Beatles were far too genius as a collective to judge them at all, let alone by my crude methods. But anyway, well done Sir Paul. Give yourself a pat on the back, baby, its you.

* Note, the Magical Mystery Tour EP, The Beatles Movie Medley EP, Free As A Bird, Real Love and All My Loving EP were deliberately omitted from the survey.